Category: Science
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Notes on Worldbuilding, Part 5: Planetary Systems
Until the boom in exoplanet studies, we really knew nothing about how planetary systems form. In the old days, with only the Solar System as our guide, it looked simple: small rocky worlds near the Sun, big giants in the outer regions. But then we began to observe things like "hot Jupiters" orbiting almost close…
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Notes on Worldbuilding, Part 4: Stars!
Now we're going to get into the real nuts-and-bolts part, creating worlds and aliens. Note that you can start this process at either end: begin with the star and work your way through the planet to its life forms and their society, or start with what you need for the story and work backward. Either…
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Notes on Worldbuilding, Part 3: The Future!
Fictional worlds which differ from our own because of some scientific or pseudo-scientific rationale are basically the definition of science fiction. After all, SF stories have all kinds of plots, all kinds of characters, all kinds of themes, but they all take place in a "science fiction world." Sometimes that's as simple as "the modern…
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Notes on Worldbuilding, Part 2: Why?
From here on, science fiction is going to be the primary focus, so when I say "worldbuilding" just assume it's SF. And, yes, I'm eventually getting to the nuts and bolts, but I think it's important to understand what we're doing and why, before we get to the how. Why? The first thing to keep…
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Notes on Worldbuilding, Part 1: Real and Not-Real Worlds
A couple of years ago I taught a class via Zoom for the Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop, on science fiction worldbuilding. Now I've decided to write up and expand my notes for that course and post that all here in a series of blog posts. My ultimate goal is to keep adding to this series…
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The Trip to Iceland, Day 2
We slept for about twelve hours on our first night in Iceland, then went downstairs for an excellent buffet breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Lots of different breads, a kind of baked scrambled egg dish, skyr (Icelandic yogurt — you're going to see that a lot), cold cuts, and so forth. And a very exotic…
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Building A New World
My first foray into teaching worldbuilding went so well I'm doing it again — only more so. This Saturday (November 6) the Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop is offering the first of a two-part online course I'm teaching. It's called "Building the Iceberg," and is all about science fiction worldbuilding. In session 1 we'll be looking…
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The Endemic
Note: I haven't put up any new blog posts for several weeks, and this one is the reason. I've been thinking about this piece for a while, but was reluctant to post it because I didn't want to feed the endless anger. Nevertheless, I think it's important, so here we go. The definition of an…
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Return to the Event Horizon!
The second half of my interview with John Michael Godier is now available on his excellent Event Horizon YouTube channel. You can listen to it here. Hear me pontificate about star-mining, slow-motion interstellar colonization, nuclear war, and how planetary scientists have fallen in love with giant impacts.
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Event Horizon Interview on YouTube
I have been a fan of John Michael Godier's "Event Horizon" channel on YouTube for more than a year now, so I was particularly pleased when Mr. Godier and his team decided to interview me about my new book The Godel Operation. The interview itself was great fun. Our conversation rambled widely, discussing the book, artificial…
The Cambias Digression 